


Pictures

by Quellen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Cancer, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 15:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10468074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quellen/pseuds/Quellen
Summary: Steve was probably Sam's best friend but that certianly doesnt mean he knows how to react to what is clearly a deep dark secret.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first work ive ever posted so any feed back would be good.

It was easily arguable that Steve was one of the best friends Sam had ever had. They lived together, they ate together, they worked out together, they watched ridiculous netflix dramas together. Considering all of the things they did together, Sam knew many things he’d rather not know about Steve. He knew that he eats peanut butter by the spoonful and double dips into the jar, he knows that he has three pairs of wonder woman underwear, and he knows that he will send back an anchovy pizza with extra anchovies because it doesn't have enough anchovies on it. However knowing all of these things, he knows very little of any importance, and hardly any details that would lend themselves to anything before the day Sam had met him. 

 

When you were to meet someone over six feet with shoulders as broad as you are tall, you tend to assume that when they say they’re willing to go running with you it means they're not going to collapse a half a mile in. Sam had seen Steve at the gym almost every time he’d been there, leg day, arm day, chest day. He was polite enough, one of those acquaintances that you greet when you see even if you don’t know there name. But three months of casual hellos turned into spotting and conversations and then they were gym buddies who waited for each other and texted if they were going to be late. And asking Steve to accompany him for a few miles in the morning before a workout seemed only polite. 

 

“Hey man what up,” Sam called as he rounded the corner, moving into a jog as he approached Steve. 

 

Steve looked up and smiled, shrugged one shoulder, “Hey Sam.” He fell into step and moved onto the sidewalk, letting Sam set a pace. 

 

Looking back Sam knew that if he had known Steve the way he does now he would have noticed something off. But on that day Steve’s responses of “I’m fine” and “just an off day” explained away all huffing and puffing. But kneeling over into the grass, unable to speak, grabbing at his jacket pocket was not anything Sam would believe was a bad day.

 

“Steve! Steve! Look at me!” Steve was avoiding his eyes, taking wheezing breaths, hunched over himself in a painful looking way. At some point Sam simply reached into the pocket Steve was still fumbling for, stunned to pull out a inhaler. Steve snatched it out of his hand and with a few puffs was breathing normally enough to stand. 

 

“Steve, I swear to god, you don’t tell someone you’ll go on a run with them if you have fucking asthma,” Sam said, head in his hands. This was just the kind of thing Steve would do, three months and occasional conversation hadn’t kept him from realizing that Steve didn’t know how to say no, especially when  it came to his friends.

 

“It’s fine Sam,” Steve was panting, “not a big deal, ya know. I just haven’t run in while, not in shape.

 

“Okay, no. The amount you bench press tells me that this had nothing to do with you not being in shape and everything to do with not telling me that going on a run is going to cause you’re freaking airways to close.”

 

Steve looked away sheepishly, still trying to uphold his poorly supported lie “Don’t worry about it Sam I’ll live, know how to handle it”

 

“Yeah, obviously,” Sam said, throwing an arm around Steve’s shoulder. “But that certainly doesn’t mean that you're going to ignore me when I say I’m making you breakfast. Gotta make sure you don’t keel over on the way home.”

 

And so a pile of pancakes two stories tall turned into a weekly thing. Which then turned into lunches and crashing on the couch and “it’s cheaper for both of us Steve, I’m not saying you’re incapable” and then they were living together. And Sam was suddenly surrounded a man that didn’t know how to choose clothing that fit and a disgusting habit of making his bed. And asthma went at the very top of the list of things Sam knows about Steve. 

 

Slowly the list grew to include that he grew up in Brooklyn, either had no family or refused to see or talk about them, and took the 3 hour train ride from D.C. to New york every other month, and came home to grumpy to be around. Sam knew that Steve had an art degree which he often complained about one day and blessed the next. And he knew that Steve used this degree for freelance work, which seems to Sam to consist entirely of being yelled at by people on the phone and then subsequently complain to him about it.

 

However this list included no childhood memories or facts about parents and someone this closed off was just yelling at the psychologist inside him. But Sam had a very strict rule of not using his therapy voice on his friends, which meant no pushing, even if Steve was a spitting image about everything he’d been taught about the consequences of suppressed emotion. So Sam tried to discreetly mention a therapist friend or group a colleague had told him about, but he knew had to respect someone's boundaries.

 

The day the list grew exponentially started about as normal as any other meaning not at all normal  because when Sam woke up steve was hopping around the living room with a shoe in one hand and his phone in the other looking quite insane.

 

“Dude what freaking time is it, what the hell are you doing?” Sam wandered out of his bedroom, to tired to really care.

 

“Oh god Sam I’m late, I’m so late. I’m supposed to be downtown in an hour and the traffic’s going to be crap and I’m so, so late.” Steve finally had his shoe on and was shucking on a jacket, turning about looking for his keys. 

 

Sam poured a cup a coffee and said “You’re fine, quit freaking.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m certainly not fine,” Steve said, “this meeting, this meeting is….” he ran into his room and came back with a wallet. “...a big company Sam, could be real money, so important.”

 

Sam simply nodded, he’d seen Steve like this before, hairbrained and on thin ice. He’d freak out all the way there before blowing away some important customer and coming home with expensive cheese because that was the sort of thing Steve spent extra money on. So he pushed Steve out the door, gave him a thumbs up, which Steve frowned at, and went back to his coffee. 

 

A few hours later Sam was studying, a masters was hard work let him tell you about it, when Steve called. 

 

“Steve! How was the meeting?”

 

“It was good, they offered me the job and…”

 

“See I told you you could do it.”

 

“That’s not the point they want me at another office in a half hour and I told them I already had rudimentary plans drawn up and I have ones that will work but I don't have them with me and I don’t have that much time and,” he paused, “will you get them for me?”

 

“I don’t know why you’re worked up of course I’ll get them, calm down, you got the job. You should be happy.”

 

“I am happy, just stressed”

 

“Well don’t worry about it, tell me where to find these plans and you can swing by on the way, I’ll even come down and give to ya. You won’t even have to come upstairs.”

 

“That great Sam, you’re great. There’s an old portfolio in the top of my closet, it’s green.”

 

“Green portfolio top of the closet, I got it man. Text me when you get here.”

 

Once he’d hung up Sam stood and stretched, walking into the hall and towards Steve's room. In the closet the portfolio was easily spotted but not so easy to get down and Sam managed to knock down what seemed nearly every other box on the shelf in reaching for it. So the portfolio was put safely aside ready for Steve while Sam attempted to put everything back. A few boxes went back on the shelves but one had landed on it’s side, dumping its contents onto the floor. 

 

Dozens of photos now littered the floor and Sam had to pick them all up. 

Two boys on the front steps of a small house with little backpacks and big smiles. “Steve and Bucky first day of kindergarten” on the back.

 

A wedding, a young couple maybe 20 standing at an altar. “Sarah and Joe 1990”

 

A boy at least 15 who looks like Steve, except smaller than Sam ever knew him, sitting on the hood of a blue truck.

 

A toddler with a shock of blond hair and tears down his face in the arms of a man wearing fatigues, the man from the wedding photo.

 

The two boys again, both with shaved heads, and the one who’s clearly Steve has yellow skin and gaunt cheeks. “First round of chemo 2001”

 

A beautiful blond woman looking in wonder around time square. “We’re not in ireland anymore”

 

A close up of the boy, Bucky, a teenager now, except he has purple bruises all down the side of his face, a black eye, and a deep cut on his cheek. 

 

Steve again, no older than nine, a little black suit, next to the brown haired boy and the woman who Sam knows is his mother, a coffin, and a folded up flag. 

 

A small family in the front of a church, a baby in the woman’s arms. “Steven’s christening 1991” 

 

A pair of blue jeans and boots sticking out from under a beat up blue truck. 

 

Steve looking small from behind a barred window, an unfamiliar background, and a woman behind him yelling at whoever’s taking the picture.

 

A hospital where Bucky leans over the bed and a woman who looks like him holds a baby and a man on the other side, the only one not smiling. “Becca’s born 2007”

 

Steve older again, bigger, almost an adult, maybe 18, except he’s in a wheelchair and there’s an IV and he has no hair and a scar on his scalp.

 

A million copies of either boy when they don’t know there’s a camera.

 

Two graves one says Sarah 2005 and the other Joe 1998 and in the middle is the back of a blond head of hair, framed by sunlight.

 

Two toddlers sticking their heads out of a blanket fort.

 

A room covered in beer bottles, and Bucky with a trash bag while a man in a wifebeater sleeps sleeps in the background a gun on the end table.

 

Another funeral and Bucky has tears this time, he’s holding a wailing baby.

 

A set of knees obscures the picture but you can a priest standing over a hospital bed, head down and beads in hand, a small body on the bed. 

 

A large run down house with a dead lawn and a wooden sign that reads “Mrs. Marge’s Foster Home”

 

Steve and Bucky, in a tree house this time. 

 

The little girl, Becca, waving from the back of a car and Bucky in the foreground not waving back. 

 

The boys again but Steve is too skinny and too pale, and Bucky with too many bruises, but they’re both smiling.

 

The view from a passenger seat of truck, the brown hair of the driver obscuring his face but you can see Brooklyn in the background. 

 

Police in the driveway of the little house and a man in handcuffs, and a stretcher with a body.

 

Steve in the hospital and Bucky with his head on the sheet’s, they're both asleep.

 

Bucky tickling a little girl who’s not yet one, supported on his hip.

 

Steve leaned over a notebook, tongue sticking out of his mouth. Just the way just the way Sam’s seen a million times.

 

They’re sitting on the front stoop of the same house a big poster that says “no more cancer” it’s dated 2003

 

A cross in the middle of an intersection, where Bucky’s setting roses, it says Sarah across the front.

 

Bucky and Steve with party hats and a cake. “Bucky’s 8th Birthday”

 

The boys younger again sitting on the lap of the woman who looks like Bucky who’s holding a children’s book.

 

A brown haired young man in a set of fatigues, and he’s walking out of the room with hunched shoulders, clearly taken from a hospital bed.

 

Two boys one with blond hair and one with brown, faces squished together both smiling sunshine smiles. 

 

And Sam picked them all up. And he put them back in the box. And he put it the box back on the shelf. And he grabbed the portfolio and went downstairs because his phone had just pinged. And when Steve thanked him he only nodded. Cause he didn’t know what to think. 

And Sam thought himself a good friend. But he didn’t think anyone was capable of taking this in without questions. Maybe he should tell someone. But Steve was clearly didn’t even want him to know. And he thought that they were best friends, and best friends tell each other when they’ve accidentally discovered each other's deep dark secrets. But they’re not supposed to have them anyway. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
